Texas lawmakers file FURRIES Act, targeting animal roleplay in schools
Texas lawmakers file FURRIES Act, targeting animal roleplay in schools
The Forbidding Unlawful Representation of Roleplaying in Education, or FURRIES, Act, filed by Austin-area Republican State Rep. Stan Gerdes, would "prohibit any non-human behavior by a student, including presenting himself or herself, on days other than exempt days, as anything other than a human being."
The law would allow for exempt days, such as Halloween and other school dress-up days.
The law defines "non-human" behavior as "any type of behavior or accessory displayed by a student in a school district other than behaviors or accessories typically displayed by a member of the homo sapiens species," with provided examples being:
Using a litter box for the passing of stool, urine or other human byproducts
A personal or outward display, except during a school play or by a school mascot, through surgical or superficial means of features that are non-human such as using tails, leashes, collars or other accessories designed for pets
Using fur, other than naturally occurring human hair or a wig made to look like human hair
Artificial, animal-like ears
Other physiological features that have not historically been assigned to the human race through a means of natural biological development
Students who bark, meow, hiss or make other animal noises that are not human speech
Licking oneself or others for the purpose of grooming or maintenance.
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Man they are still caught up on that fake story somebody sent to one of these morons claiming kids were using litter boxes in school. It never happened but they're going to try to legislate it away anyway.
The lesson here is don't troll these idiots, they'll fucking believe it and then start passing idiotic laws for non-problems.
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And when you try and tell anyone who bought it they say there is evidence, while never being able to provide any.
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They will say this legislation proves its real. Why else would this legislation exist? I'm sure the lawmakers have all the evidence.
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I've just taken to saying "provide me with evidence or shut the fuck up" usually followed closely by "how about one that's from multiple independent sources and not from a fox opinion piece or personal blog"
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It’s funny a Portuguese person just told me the same story happened in PT to justify anti-trans positions. So it’s the same bullshit story, localized, and repeated.
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Just like how antisemitic stereotypes with no basis (blood libel etc.) have been repeated in many countries for hundreds of years. Even before the internet, memes were used for the effective spreading of suspicion and hatred.
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I always love using that example to dismiss some concerns about deepfakes sparking national conspiracies.
Nobody even tried to fake a picture of it. I've seen photos on lemmy of people shaving their heads in weird ways or making some horrible bean-themed food just for the karma. Throwing an empty litter box in an empty classroom takes much less effort yet nobody even bothered.
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The weird thing is for some reason people will lie to perpetuate these falsehoods
Like I do therapy and I talk to teenagers regularly because teenagers need mental health support, obviously. And sometimes they’ll bring up shit like this: “my school installed a litter box because of these woke kids”
But even the most basic of prodding: “did they really” with a tone of like “come on” and they’ll backpedal, “well no, but like there are kids that have fursonas and shit”
It’s crazy to see it start so young. They’re realizing at like 16 they can get adults to gang up on the kid they think is weird by being dishonest, and adults buy into it because it’s a chance to bully someone weaker and politicians jump on it because it’s a new wedge issue to distract people from class consciousness
And what’s crazy is that by some perspectives if I call them out on this dishonesty and point out this cycle I’m indoctrinating them
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what? absolutely troll these idiots now that you know they are very susceptible.
just do it in a way they pass good laws out of fear instead.
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This idiocy must be weaponized
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I did a small dive and found an account of an apparent legit case of a litter box in a school, but it was for an option for extended school shooting drills
https://www.denverpost.com/2018/03/03/school-shooting-preparations/amp/
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That's how this whole "kids are identifying as cats and using litter boxes at school" shitshow started.
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Yup, camp toilets are a similar concept. It’s just a 5 gallon hardware store bucket with a snap-on toilet seat lid. You line it with what is essentially a trash bag, just to make disposal easier. Then you use a gelling agent (just like what is in disposable diapers to allow them to soak up a bunch of moisture) to reduce sloshing and smell. It’s handy for when you’re going to be away from toilets for a day or two, but don’t want to (or aren’t able to) dig a hole to shit in.
But the same concept applies for when you’re going to be trapped somewhere (like a classroom) for an extended period of time. Like, for instance, during a school shooting. When you have 30 kids in a classroom, there’s a very good chance that at least one of them will need to piss after an hour or two. And nobody wants to deal with human waste in something like an open trashcan during a lockdown.
And as an added bonus, the bucket can be used to store all of active shooter supplies when it’s not in use. So everything is in a single location to quickly grab and prep. Active shooter happens? Great, just grab the big bucket out of the closet, dump all of the supplies out, and you’re ready to go. Now all of your tourniquets, styptic bandages, etc are accessible.
But it quickly got distorted into “they’re making kids use litter boxes to indoctrinate them” instead.
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While you're right about that being fake, it's just pandering to their base who do take issue with forms of self-expression that are common amongst queer, trans and/or autistic students. Things like wearing a collar, a tail or cat ears are absolutely relatively common and this bill targets those all the same.
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My daughters love wearing cat-ear headbands. It's cute, they like it, end of story. Nobody has thrown a fit about it yet... 🤞🤞
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The lesson here is don't troll these idiots, they'll fucking believe it and then start passing idiotic laws for non-problems.
Exactly this. Just like flat earthers (and that super bizarre one about time cubes or whatever), the rubes will gobble it up and eventually people will get hurt over it.
Another one is the Birds Aren't Real meme, which I think is pretty funny, but you just know that an innocent birdwatcher will get shot some day because an extremely mentally unwell person will assume that they're some government spook checking on the "drones".
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The lesson here is don't troll these idiots, they'll fucking believe it and then start passing idiotic laws for non-problems.
Throwback to when 4chan started memeing about pizzas, and the resulting chain of events led to a real pizza parlor being shot up by a right-wing nut job who thought it was full of pedophiles.
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The lesson here is to actually troll these idiots, but with stuff that lead to idiotic laws so inconvenient that even their voter base will hate them for it.
Give them enough rope, and they'll hang themselves with it.
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They're going after easy targets like schools because if they targeted furries in the state government, all of the IT infrastructure would crumble.
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I'm frankly shocked it hasn't already, the pay for government IT jobs is kinda shit, and they've been trying to slash federal employee benefits for years (theres been recent rumors of increasing mandatory FERS deductions and turning insurance into a voucher program). they've started going after anyone LGBTQ+ federally as well.
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Ultimately the problem is that that works in their favour. Remember the Republican position is "The Government doesn't work and if you put me in charge of it I'll prove it!", so the only thing they need to do is destroy anything they can get their hands on. The only part of the government they care about (other than their specific seat) is the military. They will gleefully watch everything else burn and then point at the ashes as proof they were right all along.
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Hah, that made me chuckle. I recently attended an outdoor market in my area that for some reason had an unusually high number of furries wandering around it. I was really curious what the bus factor of that market would actually be.
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Can we still say "what's up, dawg?"
It is funny that the litter box story was taken as gospel.
What a time to be alive.
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It’s incredible that republicans can constantly waste tax dollars on worthless shit like this and still be viewed as the party of financial responsibility by their dumb ass voting base
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Bigotry is a big seller with that crowd.
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That’s a really good point I didn’t consider. Just like it was with “eggs”, the “financial responsibility” crap really is just a front they put up in bad faith to avoid admitting that it’s all about racism
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Play Duck Duck Goose? Jail
Face paint? Beleive it or not Jail
Old McDonald? Straight to jail
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Unless it's blackface
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Play Stray? You better believe it, jail
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Red rover? Also jail
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Leapfrog? Execution.
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Any behavior humans do is human behavior, this law is legally dubious at best. Mimicking animals has been a human thing since humans came to be.
Okay seriously, did someone write this law just so it could be contested in court??
The forbid non human speech is written as onomatopoeias. Like how can you call that stuff nonhuman speech after literally writing it in human language? If I read this part of the law out loud am I violating the law?
I could also see the rights to perform cultural religious dances being infringed upon by this law.
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I'd argue that the most inhuman behavior is coming from the Texas legislature.
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Wow.
I remember learning about dinosaurs as an elementary schooler after Jurassic Park came out, and spending a few months on the playground pretending to be a velociraptor (well technically they're closer to deinonychous but w/e) ... apparently that is now banned, because otherwise I might have become a scaly, for life?
Wonderful.
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apparently that is now banned, because otherwise I might have become a scaly, for life?
I'm not seeing a denial...
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Closest I ever got to being a scaly was... enjoying those old dinosaur comics from almost two decades ago, where the gimmick was it was the exact same 4 panels every time, buy with different dialogue?
But uh no, I do not have a ... scale suit? Scale-sona? I don't even know if thats the right terminology.
I just had a few friends who were DeviantArtists decades ago, and am vaguely aware via osmosis that there is a subset of furries with dino personas.
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fReE sPeEcH
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Texans, next time you look at the prices in the grocery store, remember that this is what your representatives are spending their time on.
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Man, republicans really fucking hate freedom.
“You are only allowed to express yourself in ways that are approved by the state!”
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What the fuck are they looking to do, arrest kids who say "meow" in school?
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Gives them excuses to punish "weird"/non-perfectly-conforming kids. The definition of the actual law is broad and open to more or less any interpretation you want it to have.
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No, they'll arrest their parents if they aren't white
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Licking oneself or others for the purpose of grooming or maintenance
Wtf, they can't lick their fingers after eating meow? Or use a little spit to fix a popped up hair or eyebrow? This is stupid woof.
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Nope. You gotta piss on it like a good god fearing Christian.
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So children are not allowed to play anymore. It breaks my heart knowing how important expressing the connection to a favourite animal is for many kids. I know nazis go for easy targets, but the fact they target children is just nauseating to me.
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I feel they put more effort into coming up with an acronym that into planning the actual act. I’m pretty sure in the early 90s punk phase people wore collars for fashion too.
How about focusing all this effort and passing a bill to prevent officers being pussies during an active shooter situation like in Uvalde??
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Licking oneself or others for the purpose of grooming or maintenance.
Good luck trying to enforce that. Most people lick a small wound on their hands an fingers. It's our subconscious that triggers that.
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But you can lick yourself and others for… other purposes?
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Well yeah, somebody has to give the coaches blowjobs
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Forbid child to play animals, they will do it when grow up, just see how much Trump likes to be Putin’s dog.
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I can’t wait for all IT infrastructure in Texas to get compromised over this. The amount of excellent it and comp sci guys that are furries is staggering. And there are a few online collectives that can and will do damage to personal and government entities over shit like this
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They already lost their porn privileges. Guess they want to lose the rest of the internet, too 🤷🏻♂️
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If you’re still in Texas, and not a furry, GTFO before they criminalize something YOU think is normal and harmless.
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If they come for our search history, we all quit work and start throwing the eggs.
Eggs.
Eggs.
Eggs.
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Priorities.
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So they're scared of people becoming furries. I know a few furries, not in the scene myself but furries are genuinely some of the nicest people I know. And also this bill seems ableist because I knew an autistic person that would growl whenever he had a meltdown. He wasn't a furry, it was just how he was wired.
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Republicans outlawing catboys? That’s gonna make the republicans mad.
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Make reactionaries angry at this law by saying it bans children from wearing fur.
A personal or outward display, except during a school play or by a school mascot, through surgical or superficial means of features that are non-human such as using tails, leashes, collars or other accessories designed for pets
what kind of kinky ass school mascots do Texans have
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I've checked what comm I'm in and the URL several times, this is !nottheonion@lemmy.world
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There's all sorts of crazy shit filed in the Texas House every legislative session, bills like this are basically never going to get a hearing or leave committee
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As usual, the GOP is laser-focused on the most important matters facing the American public today
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There goes any school plays with animal characters
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I loved acting like a dog as a kid. We often played things like pokemon or lion king, etc. Soooo kids just can't "play animals" anymore? Wtf.
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Man, kindergarten is gonna be really tough for any kid who has ever seen an animal. Also, gotta lock up everyone at Fisher Price for grooming children with the See 'n Say
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Singing Old McDonald is now illegal.
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Students who bark, meow, hiss or make other animal noises that are not human speech
I'm not quite sure what it is exactly (/s), but maybe—just maybe—this is yet another attempt to fuck over and ostracize transfem and autistic people, but instead of being direct about it, using furries as the boogeyman.
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And if I identity as an extraterrestrial autonomous exploration and research unit, with a general mission directive of learning about humanity first hand?
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As long as you purr like an engine and not a cat, you're fine
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Good thing made up stories from social media prompt lawmakers to pass laws at record breaking speed rather than do something about the fires burning right in front of them. Let's see what other bullshit that can be made up to get things done!
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Imposing this bullshit on children who often have vivid imaginations and like to play make believe shows just how much the Republican party actually cares about children.
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There is no way this is real, is it?